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Naked children of the tenderest years are paddling in the mud, or screaming with a virulence and pertinacity peculiar to the Arab infant. Amid these sights and sounds we glide gently through the rich country; and when from time to time we land, it is to look over an interminable expanse of wheat, beans, lentils, and clover, with here and there dark groves of date-trees clustered round villages on distant mounds. The whole country is lulled into a luxury of repose, which the lowing of cattle, the wail of the water-wheels, and the hum of distant voices seem rather to enhance than to disturb; and our noiseless mode of travel is in keeping with the universal calm. In fact there is a sort of Sunday feeling in the very air of Egypt, which the sleepy agricultural operations of the peasantry are too placid to destroy. After we had proceeded thus for about an hour and a half, we landed to inspect a massive embankment which had been erected by the ancients, but had been renewed in more modern times to prevent the Bahr Youssef in seasons of inundation from bursting into the broad ravine of the Bahr Bela Ma, or "river without water"-most appropriately

so called, for it was a wide dry wady about a hundred yards across, with precipitous banks thirty feet high-that cuts through the whole length of the Fayoum, winding away by the ragged bed the floods have cut for it in the course of the overflows of ages to the northwest, till it reaches the village of Tamiyeh, where it is dammed up into a small lake or reservoir, which discharges its superfluous waters into the Birket el Kurûn. In ancient times it is probable that this ravine, as well as another as gigantic, the Bahr Nazlet, which runs to the south-west, was used to carry off the waters of Lake Moris. These two wadies, with villages perched on the cliffs which form their banks, form a striking feature in the scenery of the Fayoum.

So long as the Bahr Youssef remains in the valley of the Nile, skirting the base of the Libyan hills, it inundates the country like its parent stream; but when it has passed the sluices of Illahoon and entered the Fayoum, it is brought under control, and only allowed to flow into the numerous wadies which are dry at other seasons. Sometimes, however, it bursts its restraining banks, and rushes into a

new channel, scooping out the mud and forming the bed of a broad river. This had been the case with the Bahr Bela Ma, though at what date the embankment had been last renewed the boatmen were unable to tell me. At all events, its invasion upon that occasion involved a dike of great length and solidity, and must have been a work of great expense.

Soon after this the current became swifter, and the dolce far niente we had enjoyed to such perfection was rudely interrupted; sakkya projecting into the river where it was unusually narrow, forced it into quite a little rapid, the tow-rope got entangled with the water-wheel, and the mast gave way and came down with the run, breaking the rotten thwarts of the boat as she broached to the current, which swept us down sideways till we stuck on a friendly bank. There was an immense amount of shouting and wading before we repaired damages and got under way again, but the Bahr Youssef had become a lively stream, and our progress was slow: we were, in fact, ascending to the level of the highest plateau of the Fayoum, and before long we came to a worse rapid than the last, where

our men, unwarned by the previous disaster, allowed the same thing to happen to us. Fortunately we were not far from the village of Howara, the sheikh of which had been notified of our arrival the day before; and he appeared just at this juncture, accompanied by a large proportion of the male population of the village, and the donkeys upon which we were to ride to the Pyramid. We therefore determined to leave the boat to find its way up the next rapid without us, till it reached the spot nearest the Pyramid, where we intended to re-embark, while we started off along the banks on donkey-back. We now soon began to observe evidences of antiquity; and these were of especial interest when we reached the ten - arched bridge of Kanatir el Agami. This spans a dry cultivated wady, in which is a grove of date-trees; but in ancient times it was the main channel by which the waters of the Bahr Youssef were conducted into Lake Moris. The ancient buttresses of the bridge rest on foundations of massive stone; and the embankment that now prevents the river from flowing into its old channel is very solid, and bears the marks

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of extreme age. We rode along it until we reached the Katasanta structure, which consists of a terrace of six carefully-jointed steps of large and well-hewn blocks, but bears no inscription whatever : it no doubt formed part of the artificial limits of Lake Moris. Then we crossed the Bahr Wardani, a deep stream flowing out of the Bahr Youssef, also an ancient channel of the river into the lake, and called by the Arabs the Bahr es Sherki, or River of the East." We turned sharply after crossing it, and followed its left bank; then traversing a hot little bit of desert, we reached our destination, after a journey of three hours and a half from Medinet. The first view of the Labyrinth was eminently disappointing, and consisted of nothing but mounds of ruins. However, in the midst of these we came upon the traces of what probably was once a temple of some magnificence, though all that now remains of it are some large blocks of granite and limestone, and the shaft and capital of a papyrus column with traces of sculpture. Some blocks here have been disinterred, which are now covered with sand, bearing the name of Amenemhat III.

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